27 replies to this topic

[yibsi]

6-14-21

So recently I had found 2 deceased tetramorium atratulum (new state record!!) queens in my pool, as identified by you guys (thanks by the way ) After this I kept looking for more of these queens in hopes that I would find a living queen. Well this morning I found this beautiful gal in pool. She was walking around the moment I got her out. I noticed that she was already missing a wing, but I’m unsure on whether or not these gals bite off their wings until they find a host colony. I wanted to keep this journal separate from my other just out of the uniqueness of these gals.

Anyway I’m gonna need some advice on this, as I’m new to parasitic ants and very little is known on keeping these gals in captivity although I have seen some successful results.

I know that I need to get her some T. Immigrans callows, so I went out with my trusty aspirator and a shovel to where a large colony of T. immigrans was. I lifted the rock and found only a few baby larvae and some alates. So I started digging and digging and digging. I managed to dig into a solonopsis molesta colony that was most likely stealing from this colony but nothing else. Just more workers and more dirt.

I rinsed and repeated this for another colony as well with no luck finding any callows. So my question is that is there any easier way to find callows? And would the freezing the workers method work?

Currently the queen is in her own test tube setup eagerly awaiting her hosts.

Thanks for the help!

Edit: grammar

Attached Images

• 
• 

Edited by yibsi, July 11 2021 - 9:26 AM.

[Manitobant]

You could try chilling the workers and then introducing them. However, you should keep looking for callows in the mean time (while chilling the workers just in case it doesn’t work out)

Also, did any of the colonies have pupae? If the chilled workers are accepted, you should give some pupae to the colony so they have a larger workforce when those emerge.

Edited by Manitobant, June 14 2021 - 8:00 AM.

[yibsi]

Alright so minor update:

I introduced the queen to some chilled workers, she began waving her antennae rapidly almost as if she could smell the workers, she began walking towards them, they were all barely moving. She got really close and then just stopped moving. She stayed like this for a while, until the workers began to warm back up, they immediately noticed the queen who was not moving, when the first worker touched her with her antennae the queen immediately curled into a ball, almost instinctively. The workers however were not aggressive at all. Then the workers began piling on top of her, while also showing no signs of aggression. Some of the workers even made a pile by the water end of the test tube where the queen had been huddled before they were introduced. But the vast majority where huddled on top of her. I took this as a success, I’ll leave them alone for a while to get aquatinted, thanks for the help!

Attached Images

• 
• 
• 

[Manitobant]

Um it looks like they’re killing her. Atratulum curl up when being attacked i think.

Edited by Manitobant, June 14 2021 - 10:20 AM.

[Swirlysnowflake]

I would separate them, it does look like the queen is being attacked 

[WSantkeeper]

This trick doesn't seem to work well with Tetramorium. 

[CheetoLord02]

I disagree. I see no workers with barred mandibles. Were they being aggressive they would have bared mandibles and likely would have not piled up, but rather done some limb-pulling and just splitting in other directions. Introductions are tough but personally I think this one is going fine. 

[NicholasP]

yeah. This one looks fine.

[ANTS_KL]

I'll follow this journal as I have never heard of anyone keeping an inquilline ant species! Too bad Malaysia has no parasitic ant species

Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

[yibsi]

For those who were worried that she was being attacked, I assure you she wasn’t, as I just checked her now and she’s perfectly fine and being groomed by her workers, here’s photos:

Edit: you kind of gotta look for her as she’s smaller then the workers also sorry for poor quality I wanted to disturb her as little as possible

Attached Images

• 
• 

Edited by yibsi, June 15 2021 - 9:10 AM.

[yibsi]

6-15-21

Alright so I found another living queen and introduced her to the setup since these gals are polygynous. This queen already bit off both wings, and when I introduced her she immediately curled into a ball just like the other queen did, and just as the workers did before they began to pile on top of her and showed very little aggression towards her. (Photo 1)
Also here is a bonus photos of the already established queen being fed via trophallaxis, you can even see how her gastor has already started to get larger!

Edit: again sorry for quality but I tried to not spend to long taking photos because feel bad for disturbing them so much

Attached Images

• 
• 

Edited by yibsi, June 15 2021 - 3:29 PM.

[Manitobant]

Perhaps them curling up and being smothered by the workers is how they get accepted? Very interesting.

[ANTS_KL]

Yay! The physiogastrism in these gals are insane. If this method succeeds, maybe add any extra queens to a current queenright tetra colony u own? The methods of reproduction in this sp are very interesting. Hope this succeeds!

Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

[Manitobant]

Yay! The physiogastrism in these gals are insane. If this method succeeds, maybe add any extra queens to a current queenright tetra colony u own? The methods of reproduction in this sp are very interesting. Hope this succeeds!
Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

adding queens to a tetra colony with a queen would probably mean death for the host queen. These guys kill them I’m pretty sure.

[yibsi]

 

Yay! The physiogastrism in these gals are insane. If this method succeeds, maybe add any extra queens to a current queenright tetra colony u own? The methods of reproduction in this sp are very interesting. Hope this succeeds!
Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

adding queens to a tetra colony with a queen would probably mean death for the host queen. These guys kill them I’m pretty sure.

 

its weird to think that these tiny T. atratulum queens that are smaller than the workers themselves kill the queen, but I think that in the wild they may have multiple queens work together to kill the host queen.

 

Edit: Actually on Antwiki it says that most of the time queens are only accepted in orphaned host colonies. It's also reported that the larvae of T. atratulum are a "peculiar gray color".

Edited by yibsi, June 16 2021 - 7:49 AM.

[ANTS_KL]

Yay! The physiogastrism in these gals are insane. If this method succeeds, maybe add any extra queens to a current queenright tetra colony u own? The methods of reproduction in this sp are very interesting. Hope this succeeds!
Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

adding queens to a tetra colony with a queen would probably mean death for the host queen. These guys kill them I’m pretty sure.

its weird to think that these tiny T. atratulum queens that are smaller than the workers themselves kill the queen, but I think that in the wild they may have multiple queens work together to kill the host queen.

Edit: Actually on Antwiki it says that most of the time queens are only accepted in orphaned host colonies. It's also reported that the larvae of T. atratulum are a "peculiar gray color".

Hmmmmm, so you should dig up a colony to found them?

Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

[yibsi]

Yay! The physiogastrism in these gals are insane. If this method succeeds, maybe add any extra queens to a current queenright tetra colony u own? The methods of reproduction in this sp are very interesting. Hope this succeeds!
Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

adding queens to a tetra colony with a queen would probably mean death for the host queen. These guys kill them I’m pretty sure.

its weird to think that these tiny T. atratulum queens that are smaller than the workers themselves kill the queen, but I think that in the wild they may have multiple queens work together to kill the host queen.
Edit: Actually on Antwiki it says that most of the time queens are only accepted in orphaned host colonies. It's also reported that the larvae of T. atratulum are a "peculiar gray color".

Hmmmmm, so you should dig up a colony to found them?
Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

No I think it just means that in the wild queens are only accepted into colonies where the queen has already died, so when you found them in captivity it’s recommended that you found them in a colony without a tetramorium immigrans queen.

[NickAnter]

Update?

[ANTS_KL]

Yes update?

Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

[yibsi]

Yes update?
Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

Sorry I’ve been busy this summer dealing with personal stuff.

A sad update, so I’ve been taking care of these gals and they’ve been doing good for a while (at one point I spotted what I thought were eggs) but today I checked them and sadly the second queen and the first queen were dead. They had both been decapitated.

My main theory is that because in the wild tetramorium are strictly monogamous, I think that the introduction of the second queen confused the workers greatly, especially when they only had around 15 workers, and I think that once they began to egg lay that the workers finally decided to kill the queens.

If I find any more I will try setting these gals up again and will update this thread, but for now it’s discontinued.

Sorry for the sad update.